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Not unless:

● Payers force their hand, by refusing to reimburse
premium-priced injectables when edible alternatives
are proven.
● Regulators evolve, and establish new pathways that
encourage plant-based approvals.
● Public pressure mounts, making the cost of
inaction a reputational risk.
● Startups succeed, showing that better, cheaper,
more scalable biologics can thrive without
traditional infrastructure.

Until then, legacy pharma has every incentive to stall,
discredit, or delay adoption. To invest in the next version of
the same delivery format. To launch a biosimilar instead of
a breakthrough.

Because embracing edible biologics wouldn’t just be a shift
in format.
It would be an admission:

That they’ve been charging patients and healthcare systems
a premium for complexity—when simplicity was always
possible.

2. Internal Incentives Reward Incrementalism

Pharmaceutical companies are often described as
“innovation-driven,” but the reality is far more complex—
and more cautious. While R&D budgets may be enormous,
the internal structure of Big Pharma rewards
predictability over disruption.

Inside these corporations, decision-making is slow, multi-
tiered, and risk-averse by design. Project teams are

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